nciples of health, and
therefore may be justly dreaded as capable of being the source of
disease indefinitely understood.

Having thus stated, as an Introduction to this Essay on Teas, the
general tendency of those imported from India, under the titles of
Green, Souchong, and Bohea, to injure the constitution, the following
pages will be particularly devoted to the consideration of the nature,
preparation, and manner of using, and the effects of such foreign teas.

ESSAY ON TEAS.

There is, perhaps, no subject on which there has been more declamation,
for and against its properties and effects, than those of teas imported
into this country by the companies trading from the different maritime
nations of Europe to China and India. Nor has there been a controversy
in which the health of the community has been so materially concerned,
that has afforded so little direction of moment to those who would wish
to ascertain the truth of such teas being either beneficial, injurious,
or innocent in their effects. Amidst a mass of declamatory assertion so
little intelligence is to be gained, that those who have had the
greatest interest in being informed of the real qualities of teas, have
most abandoned the enquiry before they obtained the least knowledge of
what they sought. Either perplexed with abstruse science, or
dissatisfied with assertion equally unfounded and unsupported,
thousands have discontinued the research, and committed themselves to
fatal experience. Thus have too many acquired a knowledge of the
detrimental qualities of teas, by the ruin of their constitution. To
avoid therefore such an inconvenience, the greatest care will be taken
to prevent an indiscriminate reference to authors, whose sentiments can
neither sanction adduced arguments or illustrate technical allusions.
The enquiry will be made with some reference to science, but more to
convince by demonstration than to confound by abstruse perplexities. So
that, while empty declamation is avoided, the principles of truth are
meant to be investigated by reason and experience. With this view, the
Nature of Green, Souchong, and Bohea teas is first considered. To judge
of the nature of these herbs with equal candour and propriety, it may
be necessary to consider their qualities in relation to what are
ascribed them, and what have been discovered by their analysis, and
what have resulted from experience. The virtues that have been ascribed
to them are chiefly,